Wired Networking

Sometimes you fix one problem only to create another. After having built such a nice system in the living room for recording cable TV (see previous post), the bedroom TV was feeling a little left out. Fortunately, by adding a "Windows Media Center Extender" like an XBOX 360 to the bedroom TV, we can extend all of the living room HTPCs functionality into the bedroom. That is, we can schedule a recording in the living room and watch it later in the bedroom, or vice versa. This works out much better than having two HTPCs because you only have to schedule a recording once, you don't have to worry about "oh I set it to record in the living room, but I want to watch it in bed right now." And XBOXs are cheaper than HTPCs.

So the second part of the problem is that while wireless technologies have come along way, there are times such as when streaming high definition video when it is just better to have a wired network connection.

I've gotten some good practice at wiring the house with ethernet cable. Shortly after we moved in, we realized that with the wireless router in the office, we didn't get a very good signal in the bedroom. So I set up a router in the office and another in the living room with a wired bridge in between. I use an existing coaxial tv cable to pull new cable up into the attic. I then cut a hole for an "old work" electrical box, and pull the other end of the cable down in another room again using an existing coax cable. In addition to providing better coverage, the two WiFi router setup has the added advantage of being able to plug in several wired devices (desktop, printer) in the office and also in the living room (htpc, blu-ray, gaming systems).

So I decided to run another ethernet cable from the living room to the bedroom to supply the XBOX/Media Center Extender with a reliable wired connection.

Here's the dirty work in progress:

And here's the end result: